10 - Lionel Messi - v5

[Giginho75]

i was thinking...
despite he hasn't to show more nothing, next season will be maybe the most important of his carreer because he has to answer to the last triumphs of real madrid and cr7...

furthermore he will have the last chance for russia 2018, certainly his target!

luckily he can have relax this summer, very important thing...
there aren't neither south american qualifiers...

good luck leo!

 

[Mitchell1978]

Messi will be so motivated next year that i sure hope he stays healthy and injury-free.

He was great this season too and injury free for the most part. He will do his part but the team has to improve significantly.

 

[serghei]

He was great this season. But he can still put in more effort in a lot of games. Please Leo, cut the walking off the ball. Be more alert and make yourself available more.

The only time we saw the real Messi in terms of both skill and will/motivation was on Bernabeu. You could tell he really wanted to win that game. He needs to be in that mood more often next season in the bigger games.

 

[FinBarcelonafan]

Who knows how he plays next season. I expect him to be great again, but don't surprised if he goes into sleepwalk mode on the pitch to conserve his energy for the World Cup.

ARgentina is not even guaranteed to make World Cup. We'll see..

 

[Alik]

He was great this season too and injury free for the most part. He will do his part but the team has to improve significantly.

Yeah, I don't think we should expect more from him than what he did this season . If we want to improve the rest of the team will just need to perform better.

Hopefully we should be able to rotate him much more often too. He needs to manage his minutes.

 

[Sorin]

How the hell does Messi lack the drive and ambition of Ronaldo? Just because he sometimes walks around? FFS Ronaldo's only job on the field is to get into the right spots to score goals, which he is great at admittedly, but everything else is done by the team. Defending, midfield duties, crosses etc. is done by a great team.

Messi on the other hand has to come to the mid to pick the ball up because we have Rakitic, Gomes, Arda etc. meanwhile they have Modric, Kroos, Isco to bring the ball from the back. That's light years difference. But wait there's more, he has to also score at Ronaldo's pace(even more) coming from midfield because Neymar's finishing has gone to shit and Suarez is hit and miss. Did i mention that he created most of our chances this season?

There is no measure of comparison between them. You can give as much credit as you want for a very good half a season for Ronaldo but the influence they both have on the pitch is like the difference between Madrid's mid and ours. World's apart.

I mean it's admirable we give CRonaldo his credits, but maybe in comparison with Suarez would be more in line with their influence. Messi is on another whole tier to these 2.

Complaining about his lack of legwork to dock him against CRonaldo is rubbish.

 

[vlad]

Truth is, he sometimes look really lazy on the pitch, treble season, he played almost every match with high intensity, this season he had matches like against psg, in both matches its looked like he played on 50%, second match, after cavani goal he didnt try much, remember season under tata martino, he was lazy whole season, we thought he is saving energy for WC in Brazil (which in first case its stupid, unprofessional, slap to all fans) case was, even on WC it seemed he didnt play at his best, so i think he is not on top when it comes to motivation, also argument "he doesnt run much because he is saving energy when attacking" it does not make sense, he doesnt need to run all the way back, what im expecting is put some pressure on player with the ball near you, run away sometimes from his defender so he could be free to get the ball, which i noticed he doesnt do alot, and then we read how for example juve or atletico defence totaly shut him off, it was because he doesnt have so much movement on the pitch, and top clubs find easier to defend against him.

Ronaldo's best weapon today is movement on the pitch, finding spaces between defenders, and he is probably best ever in that segment of play

 

[serghei]

Truth is, he sometimes look really lazy on the pitch, treble season, he played almost every match with high intensity, this season he had matches like against psg, in both matches its looked like he played on 50%, second match, after cavani goal he didnt try much, remember season under tata martino, he was lazy whole season, we thought he is saving energy for WC in Brazil (which in first case its stupid, unprofessional, slap to all fans) case was, even on WC it seemed he didnt play at his best, so i think he is not on top when it comes to motivation, also argument "he doesnt run much because he is saving energy when attacking" it does not make sense, he doesnt need to run all the way back, what im expecting is put some pressure on player with the ball near you, run away sometimes from his defender so he could be free to get the ball, which i noticed he doesnt do alot, and then we read how for example juve or atletico defence totaly shut him off, it was because he doesnt have so much movement on the pitch, and top clubs find easier to defend against him.

Ronaldo's best weapon today is movement on the pitch, finding spaces between defenders, and he is probably best ever in that segment of play

True. Imo he doesn't keep his motivation as well as Ronaldo. We all know he's ahead of him in terms of footballing ability, but not in terms of will and determination. If we put our bias aside, we have to admit that.

 

[BarcaOG]

2010 might have been a better opportunity had the eto'o ibra trade/transfert never happened

yep, one of our costliest single mistakes in the recent past

 

[Sorin]

Truth is, he sometimes look really lazy on the pitch, treble season, he played almost every match with high intensity, this season he had matches like against psg, in both matches its looked like he played on 50%, second match, after cavani goal he didnt try much, remember season under tata martino, he was lazy whole season, we thought he is saving energy for WC in Brazil (which in first case its stupid, unprofessional, slap to all fans) case was, even on WC it seemed he didnt play at his best, so i think he is not on top when it comes to motivation, also argument "he doesnt run much because he is saving energy when attacking" it does not make sense, he doesnt need to run all the way back, what im expecting is put some pressure on player with the ball near you, run away sometimes from his defender so he could be free to get the ball, which i noticed he doesnt do alot, and then we read how for example juve or atletico defence totaly shut him off, it was because he doesnt have so much movement on the pitch, and top clubs find easier to defend against him.

Ronaldo's best weapon today is movement on the pitch, finding spaces between defenders, and he is probably best ever in that segment of play

And nothing else when it comes to him vs Messi. That was my point. He's to be praised for that but not when we compare them as who has been better these last 7,8 years.

You can mention Messi's laziness etc. but it's not something Ronaldo is great at. That's not really an argument in favor of CR. Ronaldo's whole MO is give a 2 meter pass around the 40 meter mark in the opposition's half and then look for spaces created by Benzema and the gang. With Modric, Kroos, Isco and Marcelo being some of the greatest offensive passers around, the ball is sure to arrive at his feet sooner or later.

Btw his goals to shoot ratio is worse than Messi's. With all that talent he has for open spaces he is still is a worse striker than a "lazy" git like Messi who doesn't "look" for the ball that much.

It's strange that this year Ronaldo seems to be a lot more praised in comparison to Messi when there hasn't been such a big difference, ability wise, since the early 2010's.

Facebook and twitter has really helped a great poacher become the rival of an all around genius. Maradona would have been crushed playing for a team like Napoli today. He'd be seen like a rich mans Gerrard at best and nowhere near goat status. smh

 

[vlad]

Im not comparing them in anything else, anybody who watches football and understand it a bit, knows messi is in his own legaue, you should not be bothered with comments on twitter, facebook, any other social media... because its all about clicks, likes and childlish comments. But still, you should give credit to ronaldo whats he doing, and how hard he tryes put the ball behind the net, he is machine, but not with such a gift from god like messi.

 

[Sorin]

Im not comparing them in anything else, anybody who watches football and understand it a bit, knows messi is in his own legaue, you should not be bothered with comments on twitter, facebook, any other social media... because its all about clicks, likes and childlish comments. But still, you should give credit to ronaldo whats he doing, and how hard he tryes put the ball behind the net, he is machine, but not with such a gift from god like messi.

Yes, i gave credit to Ronaldo for that. Not saying he hasn't been great but from there to imply that Messi doesn't have ambition on the same level is wrong. I have seen Ronaldo sulking 2 meters away from the ball a lot when he lost it, w/o doing any effort to retrieve it. I have seen him doing shit squat in build up for a good part of his career at RM. That's why I don't understand why Messi being lazy and unmotivated is an issue when it comes to them both. It doesn't make sense.

One has a machine behind him allowing him to only look around and shoot the ball while Messi's game is required to be Modric, Kroos and Ronaldo at the same time in this team. Of course he sometimes takes plays off. It's not that easy to constantly drop deep, look for guys to thread the needle and then sprint to score the same amount of goals as Ronaldo.

Is Messi perfect? Of course not but it's not because there's a lack of ambition and laziness. When he had the team with prime Iniesta, Xavi, Alves and some semblance of organized team we didn't complain about any lack of anything because what he was supposed to do he did it at GOAT level. Meanwhile after Pep left, the level of the coaches and players constantly dropped year after year and yet we still won shit and a significant part was Messi reaching GOAT status at being an AM.

I'm mentioning this because that's what CRonaldo has at his disposal at this moment in RM. Suddenly he's more ambitious than Messi? Don't buy it for 1 second.

 

[Marie-Antoinette]

There was a debate on tv which was "Is Ronaldo better than Messi today?" Two journalits (if you can call them journalists) debated, and the one defending Messi won by 56% on internet votes.

The one who defended Ronaldo was from France Football, you know it is the paper who give the Ballon d'Or.

It is obvious than the people who loves football and understand it will say Leo. But, if you consider all the twenty-something who have the same haircut as Ronaldo they will say Ronaldo.

Should we be worry about Leo's legacy? HAha, I doubt that. The football fanatics know of course who's the best. They will tell, years after years what they saw.

The grand public will follow their words because they don't know sh*t about it. Why being worried?

Even if Ronaldo win 5 Ballon d'or as Leo that doesn't mean anything, plus, everybody here in France said the new rules are ridiculous.
Just watch, and you can tell who is the genius at work.

We will always have YouTube anyway.

 

[Androutsos]

I'm of the opinion that the Balon should be decided by statistical ratings match after match through-out the season, multiplied by difficulty of league the same way Golden Boot is decided. That way you take personal biases out, and the performances truly do speak for themselves.

 

[Question17]

I'm of the opinion that the Balon should be decided by statistical ratings match after match through-out the season, multiplied by difficulty of league the same way Golden Boot is decided. That way you take personal biases out, and the performances truly do speak for themselves.

That sounds impossible. Even the golden ball is somewhat arbitrary with its league multiplier and what counts as a goal, a player rating system sounds like a nightmare.